This was the strength of Ansar Allah: just a few dozen individuals. After the second war in 2005, launched by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they did not even have enough rifles for everyone.
In its early days, Ansar Allah was not an armed movement, but an intellectual and cultural movement focused on religious and intellectual awareness within the community where it emerged in Saada.
After the invasion of Iraq, the movement’s founder, Alsyyed Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, raised the slogan “Death to America, Death to Israel” and called for opposition to American and Israeli policies through lectures and public social gatherings.
This did not sit well with the Yemeni government at the time, so it launched a war against the movement. Its founder was killed, many of its followers and members of his family were arrested, and those who remained were forced to flee to the mountains.
After that, his brother, Alsyyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi, seen in this video, took over the leadership. From the second war until today, there has been a recurring pattern: with every war launched against them, the movement emerged stronger and more widespread.
The former regime waged six wars against it. Saudi Arabia and its allies then launched a war that lasted 12 years and continues to this day. With every war, every act of aggression, every siege, and every attempt to weaken it, the movement emerged stronger, more experienced, and more influential.
As the years passed, the movement’s project was embraced by a broad segment of Yemenis, and many joined it, until its positions and choices came to reflect the aspirations of a large part of the Yemeni people.
With Gaza, this connection became even more visible, and Yemen’s name became globally associated with that stance.
The conclusion many Yemenis draw from this story is simple: every battle, every act of aggression, and every attempt to break them ended with the opposite result from what their opponents intended. The greater the pressure, the stronger and more visible the Yemeni people became than they were before.